


Taste of Your Own Medicine

by lit103



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:33:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit103/pseuds/lit103
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk knew they would slip up someday, like Spock would get so fed up about some trivial thing that he’d roll his eyes at Kirk in public in that <i>way</i> he has and everyone would see it and just <i>know</i>…</p><p>1.9: Miri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taste of Your Own Medicine

Kirk knows the virus isn’t affecting Spock the way it is him, and at first he’s just grateful that Spock is okay, and then as the virus starts really kicking in he starts to get annoyed, annoyed not that Spock isn’t symptomatic but that Spock doesn’t seem particularly worried about _him_. Spock doesn’t ask him how he’s feeling; Kirk never once looks up and catches Spock watching him when he thinks Kirk isn't looking. Kirk would be more likely to be caught watching—well, glaring at—Spock, if Spock were to ever look up from his microscope, which he never does. He just sits there very still, face lit from below, occasionally taking notes. When he does look at Kirk—and Kirk can’t help himself; his heart actually _leaps_ when it happens—it’s like Kirk is just another specimen under his microscope. There’s this one time where he strides over to Kirk and grabs his hand and Kirk feels this weird lurch of terror and excitement like he’s what, seven years old and his hand's been taken in the middle of the playground by someone he likes and he knew they would slip up someday, like Spock would get so fed up about some trivial thing that he’d roll his eyes at Kirk in public in that _way_ that he has and everyone would see it and just _know_ , or someone would think to wonder why Spock was always the one who answered the comm in Kirk’s room or why the comm in Kirk’s room is the one they automatically call when they're _looking for Spock_ and oh my God why do they even _do_ that, and how could they do that at least once a day and _still not know_ , but he’d never thought it would happen like _this_ , with Spock doing something so blatantly obvious as taking his hand and looking into his face and asking gravely “How are you feeling, Captain.” Which of course isn’t really what happens. What really happens is Spock takes his hand, turns it over, inspects the festering purple sore on his palm, then drops it to go make a _note_ in his _notebook_ and Kirk gets so furious all of a sudden that he turns and walks into Yeoman Janice so hard that she drops the flask she’s holding and it smashes on the floor. He practically storms out of the building and walks around the block a few times to calm down. Spock doesn’t follow. By the time Kirk turns back the anger has abated and he’s beginning to realize that it was probably just a symptom of the virus, just like the sores. When he re-enters the lab, Spock glances up very quickly but looks down again as soon as he sees who it is. He was probably hoping it was Bones, Kirk thinks, savagely kicking a can. Spock glances up at the clatter, then makes another note in his notebook.

Seeing the way Spock runs to Bones when he injects himself with the antidote, kneeling beside him and taking his pulse, makes Kirk _very_ briefly regret not having played up his symptoms to get Spock’s attention. Which is a fairly selfish thing to think, all told, what with Bones lying there maybe having just sacrificed himself to save Kirk’s life. But then Bones' sores just start fading, and Spock makes sure Bones is okay, then fills a syringe with the antidote, grabs Kirk’s arm really unnecessarily hard and stabs him with it and then shoves him into a chair and when Kirk tries to get up thrusts him back down into it and kind of stalks away. And then a medical team beams down and it transpires that Spock hasn’t been given the antidote yet so someone has to do that, and Kirk, whom the antidote has made feel kind of sleepy and benevolent, just sits back in his chair and watches Spock present his arm for the injection, thinking that if he watches Spock long enough Spock will have to look at him eventually, but he never does. They take Kirk up to the sickbay and tell him to stay the night for observation even though he’s definitely fine. As soon as they leave the room he gets out of bed and he's gathering up his things to leave when Spock says “Captain, you should be in bed” from right behind him and makes him jump and swear really loudly. The room is dark, and Kirk can hear the slow, regular beeping of the heart monitor behind him. The machine casts a dim red glow. Spock is a dark shape standing very close to him; Kirk can’t see his face.

“ _Now_ you notice,” he says grumpily, not getting back into bed. “I’m not sick anymore, remember?”

“How are you feeling, Captain,” Spock says in that way he has of not asking questions like they’re questions. 

“Fine,” Kirk says. “I’m feeling fine, Spock. Again, not sick anymore, remember?”

They stand there for a minute, not speaking. Kirk feels like he should be mad but he’s remembering Spock bent over the microscope for what he’s pretty sure was like three straight days without a break and it’s really hard to remember whether he was angry because of the virus or because of something worth being angry about and it’s also hard to come up with anything that feels worth being angry about in this room that doesn’t feel like it’s part of the Enterprise anymore, if it ever even was, with Spock standing a foot away in the darkness, clearly looking at him very intently. Kirk can feel it even if he can’t see it, and it’s making his stomach do that thing again like maybe he should lie back down again after all.

“Captain,” Spock says. His voice is much softer than usual but in that dark room it sounds loud. “It has come to my attention that my behavior over the past three days may have seemed insensitive to you. Please allow me to expl—”

“I know, Spock,” Kirk says tiredly. It’s not like they haven’t been over this a dozen times before. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was getting into. But it’s also not like he doesn’t think, every time Spock looks at him for longer than is strictly necessary, like it takes him longer to _process_ Kirk than it does other people, or when he does that thing with his eyebrow like he’s about to _think_ about raising it or his eyes get that warmth that's looks both exactly like they do at every other time and so like no other look Kirk’s ever seen in his eyes or anyone else's that Kirk’s surprised no one else seems to notice—it’s both the most alien and the most human thing about him—it’s not like Kirk doesn’t think, at those times, “What have I gotten myself _into_.” Because it took him a while to realize it, but what’s going on on Spock’s face at those times—like when he looked into Kirk’s face and said “I do want to go back to the ship, Captain”—what was going on then was something that ran so much deeper than Kirk could have imagined at first, something that maybe had begun much earlier and been arrived at more quickly than Kirk’s something had—more _impulsively_ even—but then Spock had needed time to catch up with himself, had to spend three years checking and re-checking what he already knew.

“I know, Spock,” Kirk says. “It’s just the way you are. And while you are aware that the differences between us may occasionally cause me to believe that you literally do not care whether I live or die, you nevertheless are profoundly grateful for both our anatomical and psychological diff—”

“That is _not_ ,” Spock says, talking over him, “what I was trying to say. Please allow me to explain. With only seven days left, it was imperative that I focus my attention on finding an antidote and your suffering was... distracting.”

“Ha!” Kirk cries. “So you _were_ worried about me.”

He can’t see in the dark, but he knows exactly the look Spock’s giving him, like what he's just said isn't worth dignifying with a reply.

“You could have just _told_ me,” Kirk says, partly because he knows that’ll get him that look again, and partly because it’s kind of true. Spock gives him the look again. “What if I had actually, you know. _Died_. And you’d spent my last days on that or any earth staring into a microscope. Think about how _that_ would have made you feel.”

“Had I spent your last days doing anything _but_ staring into that microscope, Captain,” Spock says in what for him are decidedly acid tones, “you would assuredly have died. We had days, Captain. Had Doctor McCoy not risked his life by testing the antidote on himself, we might have had only minutes to spare. You might have died precisely _because_ I wasted time _not_ staring into that microscope. I could not risk that. And, in any case, had you in fact died, I would much rather have spent your last days trying to prevent you from doing so. I,” Spock says, and stops. There is a momentous pause. “I do not want you to die, Captain,” and Kirk, for the first time in a week, laughs. 

“I don’t want you to die either,” he says, and “Spock. Thank you,” and Spock nods seriously and says “You’re very welcome, Captain.”


End file.
